Then he heard the voice say, “Go get him, boy. Dinner is served.”

The sound of something running. Something getting closer. Something panting hungrily.

Not long after that, Pierce passed out.

When the sun came up, and Craig Pierce was spotted, staked out in the middle of the park by Promise Falls, he was nearly dead.

Considering what had happened to him, Duckworth thought, he’d have been better off that way. He’d conducted interviews with Pierce in the hospital in the days following the attack.

Now he decided, three months later, that it was time for another chat with the man. He was not looking forward to it.

SIXTEEN

CAL

I put the phone back to my ear and said to Bob, “Too late. We’re here.”

I brought my Honda to a stop behind the red Porsche. Jeremy threw open the passenger door and ran up the driveway toward the house, careful not to look at the other car or even get near it, as though the vehicle were radioactive.

Slowly, I started toward the house. There were no police cars in the driveway, so I guessed Madeline Plimpton had decided against reporting the broken window. As Jeremy reached the front door, Gloria emerged with open arms.

“There you are,” she said. “You’re okay.”

He avoided her welcoming hug, blasted past her and walked into the house, but not before shouting, “Not with that asshole around!”

Bob appeared, cell phone in hand. He saw me and glowered. “I told you to stall. You got here too soon!”

I stopped and waited for him to come to me.

“This is not helpful,” he said, stopping six feet short of me, waving the phone in his hand.

“Like I said, we were already here.”

“Where the hell was he, anyway?”

“Arranged a date with a girlfriend from Albany.”

“Son of a bitch. Who?”

“Charlene Wilson.”

He shook his head. “Jesus. Her.”

I nodded in the direction of the sports car. “What’s this? Is this really the car Jeremy was driving when he killed that girl?”

“I didn’t know he was going to bring it. I swear, I don’t know what the hell he was thinking.”

“Galen Broadhurst?”

Bob nodded. “Yes. He needed to see me.”

“And he decided to drive this? What did he want to do? Rub the kid’s nose in it?”

Bob shook his head with frustration. “I know, I know. It was stupid. It’s the first time he’s even driven it since—”

“Bob!”

A man was charging out of the house. Late fifties, gray hair, about two hundred pounds, leather jacket, jeans, black lace-up boots.

“That’s him,” Bob said. “God, I hope he didn’t run into Jeremy. This never should have happened.”

“Why didn’t you tell me the boy was here?” Galen Broadhurst said angrily.

“I tried,” Bob said as Galen closed the distance. When the man reached us, he looked at me and said to Bob, “Who’s this?”

Manners. I liked that.

“This is Cal Weaver,” Bob explained. “We’ve brought him in to assess the risks Jeremy faces.”